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Cleusa Millet Is Dead at 67; Nurtured Afro-Brazilian Faith

Cleusa Millet, a former nurse who became the spiritual leader of one of the most celebrated Candomble temples in Brazil, died on Oct. 15 in Salvador da Bahia. She was 67.

Newspapers reported the cause of death as heart failure.

Known as Mother Cleusa, Mrs. Millet presided over the Candomble temple at Alto do Gantois in Salvador, Brazil's first capital, now home to a flourishing renaissance of Afro-Brazilian culture. Candomble is the strongest of Brazil's syncretist religions, mixing the nature-based beliefs some four million slaves brought from Africa with the Catholicism of the Portuguese colonists.

Its pantheon of orixas -- gods and goddesses of wind, oceans, still water, metals and fire -- correspond to Catholic saints, and appear in masks and swaying skirts of raffia.

Mother Cleusa took over the Gantois terreiro, as the temple is known, from her mother, Maria Escolastica da Conceicao Nazare, known as Mother Menininha, after her mother's death 10 years ago.

A towering figure in Afro-Brazilian culture, Mother Menininha helped transform Candomble from a belief whose rituals of animal sacrifice, possession, music and dance were persecuted as a form of devil worship to a religion accepted in the highest levels of society. Though initially reluctant to give up her nursing career, Mother Cleusa tended her mother and the Gantois temple during her mother's final years of ailing health, eventually agreeing to succeed her, if that were to be her fate.

She became the new high priestess through a ritual known as throwing the shells, in which the orixas are said to select the new spiritual leader of a temple through the shells. The Gantois is one of the few Candomble temples in Brazil whose leadership has passed along blood lines and has always been headed by a woman.

''Mother Cleusa represented the continuity of an important line in Candomble,'' said Jeferson Bacelar, an anthropology professor at the Center for the Afro-Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Bahia.

Mother Cleusa was not known for initiating any dramatic changes in Candomble, but dedicated herself to tending what her mother had built. With the help of wealthy patrons, she renovated the temple and created a memorial to her mother that became a kind of museum of Candomble. She collected donations from the Brazilian rich and renown, some of whom have become devotees of Candomble with the religion's growing popularity in recent years.

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Her friends and associates included the singers Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethania and Caetano Veloso, and the President of the Senate, Antonio Carlos Magalhaes. Several times, Mother Cleusa met with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who once said that he was born ''with one foot in the kitchen,'' an expression suggesting he was part black. The Governor of Bahia declared a day of official mourning for her.

''She was a very fine person,'' said Zelia Gattai, a Brazilian writer. ''She would help anybody who needed her.'' Ms. Gattai's husband, Jorge Amado, the author, was also friends with Mother Cleusa.

''She was very much like her mother,'' said Walson Botelho, artistic director of the Bale Folclorico da Bahia, who is a senior figure in another Candomble temple in Salvador. ''She had a conciliatory spirit, and was a good, honest person,'' said Mr. Botelho. ''She treated everybody the same, whether it was a poor person or the President.''

On Wednesday, the seventh day after her death, followers held the last funeral ceremony at her temple, Mr. Botelho said. In the center of the room were the objects she loved, including her favorite foods, clothes and belongings. The drums, which are associated with the orixas, remained silent.

The natural successor to Mother Cleusa is her eldest daughter, Monica Millet. Mother Cleusa is survived by three other children as well. They are Alvaro, Zeno Eduardo and Ana Carolina.

A percussionist for Mr. Gil and other top musicians, Monica Millet, 37, has said she does not intend to take her mother's place as the high priestess of Candomble. But then again, her mother was once heard to say the same.

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A version of this obituary; biography appears in print on October 25, 1998, on Page 1001053 of the National edition with the headline: Cleusa Millet Is Dead at 67; Nurtured Afro-Brazilian Faith. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe